Safeguarding documentary heritage – the Polish Memory of the World

Poland is a country which is not only rich in heritage, but has also suffered perhaps more than most from its destruction. As such, it has been a natural supporter of UNESCO’s work in the field, engaging with the Memory of the World Programme from 1992. It has found that both the international and national registers have been an important way of drawing attention to documentary heritage and the issue of this heritage preservation and accessibility. UNESCO’s 2015 Recommendation on documentary heritage has also provided an important call for heritage preservation to be seen as a global priority, given that heritage itself is global. The challenge now is to ensure the continued relevance of this work, encouraging research into, and use of, documentary heritage that has been saved for the future.